


Rock the Boat

by purpleeyesandbowties



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Everybody Loves Veth Collection, F/M, fjord has fjeelings, nebulously set on the trip to Rumblecusp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpleeyesandbowties/pseuds/purpleeyesandbowties
Summary: Fjord has Fjeelings about Veth that he's been ignoring since the beginning of their travels together.
Relationships: Fjord/Nott | Veth Brenatto
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48
Collections: Everybody Loves Revetha





	Rock the Boat

The group he falls in with are varied. They’re beautiful, most of them, powerful, smart and kind and funny. Jester is clear about her intentions towards him. She’s the loveliest of them all, and some part of him wants to accept her thinly-veiled offers. So it’s with ire and annoyance when he realizes, several months into their journeys, that his eye is drawn by the scrawniest, meanest, strangest of the bunch. He sees Caleb carry Nott on his shoulders with a familiarity borne of trust and time, listens to Jester dream up impossible battle plans with her, cut through with giggles, and he aches. It seems that Nott only pays attention to him to insult him—or try to. He takes insult from very little these days, and her barbs don’t cut that deeply. Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t throw insults back at her. He does, and he can see how she delights in each one. It turns their bickering into something else: a game, a skill they both sharpen over time. It even instils in them a sense of partnership. It’s something that belongs to them and he cherishes it. And yet, he turns his strongest feelings inward, nurses that tiny flicker of attraction until it’s warm enough to be named sometime else. And he doesn’t say anything. 

The first time he realizes that this is more than a passing crush is when he thinks he’s killed her in the tunnels leading away from Felderwin. But she has a husband and a child and a thing for Caleb. There’s no room in that for him to look at her, let alone for her to look at him. So he compartmentalizes, pushes it down, and pretends nothing has changed, even though the sick churning in his gut of misplaced guilt and grief stays long past the moment when she pops up, alive and healthy and laughing at his panic.

In Xhorhas he starts to look at her more seriously. Here, Nott is beautiful, can be desirable, doesn’t have to hide behind her mask or bandages. Here, it seems natural to look, to want, to imagine. It gets even easier to look and want and imagine after she’s restored to her true self. As a halfling, she’s stunning. But he had thought her beautiful as a goblin, too.

It’s obvious to Fjord that Veth has been avoiding Caleb since her transformation. It doesn’t surprise him. Caleb is allergic to expressing his feelings and Veth hates to upset the status quo with him—one of the few situations in which she doesn’t want to rock the boat. So she wanders the decks of the Balleater, alone more frequently than not, and calls him captain with a wink. Fjord very stoically pretends not to blush whenever she does.

Fjord is idly watching the horizon at dusk one night when she joins him on the deck. Her hair is wet, out of its braids, and she smells clean. Fjord wonders, quietly, if it’s gotten easier for her to take baths, now that she’s no longer a goblin. He doubts it. He knows better than most how trauma clings to you. You could even say it drowns you. 

He huffs a quiet laugh.

“What is it?” Veth asks. 

Fjord shakes his head. “Team drowning victims. Here we are, both of us, on a ship. Again.”

“Don’t remind me,” Veth says, pulling a disgusted face. She grips the railing of the ship a little harder. Fjord bumps into Veth’s side. Maybe it was due to the movement of the ship. It’s hard to tell. Veth grins and bumps her hip into him, harder and more deliberately. He doesn’t retaliate. They both fall quiet and look back out over the water. He feels moody and unsettled as he watches the sun sink lower into the water, turning the sea into shadows. It seems Veth feels the same.

“Must be hard,” she says suddenly. “Being the captain. You’re doing a great job—much better than you did last time—but it’s a big role to fill.”

“It has been a challenge,” Fjord allows. 

“I’m proud of you,” Veth says. She doesn’t follow it up with a joke or a barb. She’s been doing that more frequently: saying something sincere and meaning it. It’s been horrible for his heart, truly. Fjord braces his hands against the handrail, leaning out just a little. He closes his eyes and admits, “It really means…a lot to me that you’d say that, Veth. More than you know.”

“Aw, Fjord, I always knew you were in love with me,” Veth says breezily. One of Fjord’s hands slips in surprise and his chin slams into the handrail before he can catch himself. He falls hard, one hand cradling his chin, the other hooked over the handrail in an attempt to keep him from hitting the deck of the ship entirely. His cheeks are burning and there’s more than a little panic in his eyes. 

“What?” he croaks. Veth had dropped to her knees when he went down, instinctively reaching out to him, but now she freezes, her hand only a few inches from his face. She looks as bewildered as Fjord feels, and her own cheeks are flushed.

“Wait, Fjord are you—do you—”

Her words stumble over each other in their haste. Fjord scrambles to his feet, using the handrail to push himself upright.

“What’s that, Beau?” he calls to no one, filled with a false bravado. “You need something, first mate? I’ll be right there!”

He only gets two steps away before Veth grabs his wrist and yanks him to a standstill. It speaks to how shaken he is that she’s able to do so—despite her frequent jabs at his strength, he does have a bit of muscle on her.

“Fjord, are you in love with me?” she asks. There’s nothing teasing in her tone, nothing that indicates she thinks this is a joke.

Quickly, he debates lying, evading, or breaking free of her grasp and running away. But then it prickles at him, the way she’s been lying, evading, and running from so much in her life. Her curse, her marriage, even the decision she has to make at the end of this adventure. If she won’t brave up and face the truth, he might as well. Maybe it would convince her to stay. Even if it didn’t, even if it put a moment of hesitation in her mind when she decides to leave the Mighty Nein behind—it would be worth this brief moment of humiliation.

“Yes.”

Veth drops his wrist. She blinks, then sits down with her back to the side of the ship. 

“Why?” she asks. It’s a fair question. If you’d asked any member of the Nein who they thought Fjord was in love with, Veth probably wouldn’t have made the top three. In response, Fjord sits next to her and shrugs.

“You’re smart and funny and brave. I like being around you.”

“I’m _mean_ to you,” Veth says indigently. Fjord smothers the urge to laugh.

“I’m mean to you, too. You still come back, don’t you?”

She snorts. “Good point. Still….in love? Are you sure?”

He pauses. “Fairly?” 

He’d been sure, before, but her asking that has thrown him off. How _does_ he know he’s in love with her? He says nothing, rubbing at his sore chin once before dropping his hand to his lap.

“Are you okay?” she asks. She leans over, in his personal space, and touches his chin. Her hands are soft and warm and cradle his chin gently. He can feel her breath on his neck and it sends a shiver through his body. His heart, which had just started leveling out, goes into overdrive. He jerks back, face heating up (again).

“I'm fine,” he says quickly, looking away. She leans back and crosses her arms, watching him closely. 

“Huh. You might actually be in love with me.”

He looks down. “Yeah,” he says eventually. Without looking at him, Veth slides her hand across the deck and takes his hand. 

“That’s weird,” she says casually. Fjord feels a smile creeping up on him. He squeezes her hand gently.

“It is,” he agrees. They remain miraculously undisturbed, holding hands in knowing silence, until the sun goes down, and into the night. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sidras-tak on tumblr and you can also reach me on discord at KitS #4004!


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